Shocking

In a recent phone conversation, the name of Doug Tracht, a Radio shock DJ, better known to his listeners by his nom de plume; The Grease Man, had been mentioned.

Unless you have lived in the Washington, DC area during the last 2 plus decades you will not know “The Grease”.

He replaced Howard Stern on DC’s leading rock radio station, DC101 in the summer of 1982. Stern was fired by the station. It was probably this best thing that could ever to happen to Stern’s career.

I had listened to both Stern and Tracht on DC101 in the 1980.s, but I preferred Tracht. They differed in style in their “shock jocking” the listeners. Tracht was a better story teller and would use a made up vocabulary for words that you couldn’t use “on the air”. Very similar to what W. C. Fields did in his movies. The implications were there.

Through innuendo, you understood what Tracht was talking about.

Tracht’s downfall at DC101 was his tendency to use racial slurs. For the inaugural Martin Luther King Day (1986) he stated on air ‘Kill four more and we can take a whole week off.’ Of course, this quote is taken out of context. His intention was to say that Federal Government Employees just look for another holiday Monday. He apologized to the Black Community, saying that it was just meant to be a joke. He received a week suspension without pay for this Faux Pas.

Doug had never learned a lesson from his past experiences. He did it again in 1999 after playing a Lauryn Hill song, (as a reference to the quality of her music) he said "And they wonder why we drag them behind trucks.” (This was a comment about the murder of James Byrd in Texas). This time Doug was fired.

I do not believe, as some do, that Doug is a racist. He’s just not too selective about his humor and what comes out of his mouth while he’s on the air.

He’s now back on AM Radio in DC.

I’ve spent a few hours this afternoon listening to some his old stuff on Greaseman.org . Check out the Bit Vault on this site. There are some very funny bits in these archives.

The Beach Bum